Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an action-adventure, third-person shooter game. The game is the second installment in the Uncharted series. It was developed exclusively for the PlayStation 3 in 2009. Plot The game opens with Nathan "Nate" Drake wounded and bleeding in a train. When he looks outside the window, he notices that the mountains outside are shaped the wrong way. Objects then start flying at him opening the door. Drake then realizes the train is actually hanging off of a cliff. After climbing out of the wreckage, Drake has a series of flashbacks to reveal that Harry Flynn, an associate of Drake's, and Chloe Frazer, Drake's romantic interest before the events of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, located Drake to hire him for a job to steal a Mongolian oil lamp from an Istanbul museum. Drake becomes interested in the job when he learns that the oil lamp may lead to Marco Polo's lost fleet. Flynn and Drake acquire the oil lamp, which Drake proceeds to break and find a scroll hidden inside of it. Drake sets the remains of the oil lamp on fire, learning that the oil lamp was made of resin. The scroll, originally blank, is shown that it leads toward the mythological Cintamani Stone, a large sapphire estimated a worth over millions, in Shambhala, otherwise known as Shangri-La. Flynn then proceeds to double-cross Drake, taking away both his escape route and alarming the museum guards to his presence. Drake is arrested and imprisoned for three months before Victor "Sully" Sullivan and Chloe Frazer, who didn't know of Flynn's treachery before his betrayal of Drake, and free him. Drake and Sully proceed to go Borneo, following Flynn's and Zoran Lazarevic's, the person that paid for the theft of the Mongolian oil lamp, trail. After an infiltrating Lazarevic's camp, they learn that the Cintamani Stone was aboard Marco Polo's lost fleet. Heading into a tomb, they discover a Tibetan phurba and a clue from Marco Polo leading to a temple in Nepal. In Nepal, Drake and Chloe try to locate the correct temple, while Lazarevic is destroying the city to find the same temple. Drake assumes that the temple they are looking for has one of the same symbols that is adorned on the phurba. En route to the temple, after surmising which one it is from a local hotel, the pair runs into Elena Fisher, who was previously in Drake's Fortune, and Jeff, Elena's cameraman. Elena and Jeff explain that they are looking for Lazarevic, who is a ruthless killer and assumed dead. The four reach the temple and Drake and Chloe learn that the gate to Shambhala is located in the Himalayas. Once getting out of the temple, the group learns that Jeff has been wounded and Chloe insists that its a lost cause to bring him with them. They finally decide to bring Jeff with them and after running through many of Lazarevic's soldiers, they come to an end with a cliff to large for Jeff to go down. As the group hears Flynn and Lazarevic's men approaching, Chloe aims her gun at Drake to protect her cover. Lazarevic executes Jeff and leaves Flynn to kill Drake and Elena. The pair escape and Drake opts to save Chloe, who was brought to the train yard. Drake tries to get close to the train that Chloe is on, as Elena steals a jeep. The train leaves without Drake on it and Elena pulls in. They follow the train and Drake jumps from the jeep onto the train. Drake heads to the front of the train and finds Chloe. Flynn then shows up and shoots Drake in his abdomen. Drake retreats and Flynn sends his men after him. With no other option, Drake shoots propane tanks that throws his part of the train over the side of a cliff. It then returns to the present, where Drake has located the Tibetan phurba in a mess of a snowstorm. Wandering aimlessly in the snowstorm, Drake collapses to be found by an unknown man. Drake wakes up in a village and is introduced to Tenzin. Tenzin leads him to Karl Schäfer, a 90 year-old German explorer. Drake is also reunited with Elena. Drake, who is about to give up his quest for the Cintamani Stone, is lead to a series of ice caverns with Tenzin. As they travel through, Drake and Tenzin are attacked by a yeti-like creature. After travelling further, they learn the Shafer's men were Nazis and that Schäfer had to kill them to protect the power of the stone. After leaving the caverns, Drake and Tenzin learn that the village is under attack by Lazarevic's soldiers. Lazarevic's convoy is going towards an old monastery, which Drake and Elena follow. After reacquiring the phurba, Drake and Elena head find the secret entrance to Shambhala. The pair are then found by Lazarevic and his men, who have also learned that Chloe was working with them. After Drake opens the entrance to Shambhala, under Lazarevic's orders, creatures from the ice caverns show up again. It is then shown that the yeti-like creatures are actually human guardians of Shambhala. After escaping from Lazarevic, Drake, Chloe and Elena try to reach the Cintamani Stone before Lazarevic does. Once they reach the supposed location, Drake realizes that the Cintamani Stone isn't a sapphire, but is actually amber. He then realizes that Lazarevic was looking for the Tree of Life, from which the amber was made from. Flynn, who has been severely wounded, arrives and detonates a grenade while close to Elena. After getting close to the gate out of Shambhala to get Elena out, Drake decides to go after Lazarevic and confront him before he gets to the Tree of Life. Drake arrives at the time as Lazarevic drinks the sap from the Tree of Life. After Drake destroys the Tree of Life and leaves Lazarevic for the guardians. As the Shambhala begins to be destroyed from the destruction of the Tree of Life. Back at the village, Chloe asks Drake if he loves Elena, which he does not deny. Chloe bids him goodbye as Sully leads a recovering Elena to Drake. Sully then begins to chase after Chloe and leaves Drake and Elena alone. Elena asks how scared Drake was as she was about to die, on a scale of one to ten, which he replies as a four. When questioning what is higher, he responds saying that the guardians were scarier. Elena then questions what a ten would be, which he replies as clowns. It then fades as Drake says if a five is good enough. Gameplay Much of the gameplay hasn't changed from Drake's Fortune, still supporting the platforming elements with a third-person shooter. New additions from in the game is a new combat system, only supporting the square button as a melee attack and using triangle button as a counter attack. New guns have been added, such as the crossbow and the mini-gun. The gunplay has been improved, making it smoother and more action-packed. The new guns can be acquired from the enemy types, such as the guardians and the heavy soldiers. Drake has a journal, which provides assistance, much like Sir Francis' journal had in the first installment. The journal is periodically updated with information as it is acquired and it can now be flipped through to allow more content to be viewable and larger puzzles. A new multiplayer component is included in Among Thieves, including the standard Deathmatch and King of the Hill, as well as new ones like Chain Reaction and Plunder. Skins can be chosen to associate the player with a character from the main story. For example, on the heroes side, one can pick Drake, Sully or Chloe to pick from, whereas the villains side has the antagonists and basic enemies. Downloadable Content * Golden Guns - The Golden Guns add-on contains gold skins for the AK-47 and Beretta weapons. * The Fort - The Fort was the first downloadable add-on and included only a new playable map for the multiplayer game. The Fort is based upon The Fortress chapter from Drake's Fortune. * Uncharted: Eye of the Indra Multiplayer Skin Pack '''- The skin pack includes characters from the Eye of the Indra motion comic. It includes both Rika as a hero skin and Pinkerton as a villain skin. * '''PlayStation Heroes Skin Pack - The pack includes skins for Nathan Hale and a Chimera soldier from the Resistance series and Cole, both good and evil, and Zeke from the inFAMOUS series. Despite its name, it includes evil characters, such as Evil Cole and a Chimera soldier. * Sidekick Skin Pack - The skin pack includes six alternate skins to previously available characters and two new villain skins, Dillon and Mac. * Siege - Siege includes a new multiplayer mode, the titular Siege mode, two new maps, six character skins (two of which are from Drake's Fortune) and eleven PSN trophies. * Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Bundle - The bundle, which includes two new multiplayer maps, six new skins from Drake's Fortune, thirteen medals and twelve PSN trophies. The maps with the trophies and the skins were originally released as a single purchase. Reception Uncharted 2: Among Thieves received universal critical acclaim. The first publication to review it was the French edition of PSM3. In their review, they called the game "Long, visually stunning, deep and explosive, Uncharted 2 combines all the qualities you can find in a videogame, and more! A new milestone has been reached in the videogame history." The magazine awarded the game its first ever "21/20". PlayStation: The Official Magazine awarded the game a perfect score. In their review, they stated, "Forget Game of The Year. This is one of the greatest games of all time!". The UK edition of the magazine also gave the game a perfect score, and was later awarded "Game of the Year 2009" by the magazine. Category:Games released on the PlayStation 3 Category:Games released in 2009 Category:Games that are rated T Category:Games by Naughty Dog